Video: Y.O.U.T.H. on Health, Family and Community

Videos also enhance the exhibit experience in Through the Eyes of the Eagle: Illustrating Healthy Living. These include the PBS special on diabetes on the O’odham Nation called Bad Sugar (part of the Unnatural Causes series) and saguaro harvesting and cooking tradtions in a episode of NPTA’s Seasoned with Spirit series. Most striking perhaps, is a short video in which you watch a cooking class presented by Young O’odham United Through Health (Y.O.U.T.H.) members and hear them talking about what health means to them, their families and community. Here is an excerpt.

Transcript

Speaker: Cissimarie Juan, TOCA YOUTH Program Coordinator

And the cool thing is that all of these ingredients can be found in your own kitchen, or you can go to a local store just to find them or even grow your own. Today we're using the baby spinach. How many of you know that we have our own awesome spinach? Wild spinach.

[inaudible reply]

Good!

[fades from cooking presentation to interview]

So how did we get to where we are now? As a people, as a tribe, we were always known for growing our own food. What happened to that? A lot of young people do know and understand that we were farmers, but haven't really thought of "OK, well why are we in this situation now? Why do have the highest rate of diabetes in the world? Why does it affect our families?" A lot of people are in denial about it. I can honestly share a story that I was too. I came from a strong loving family. I've always been a really close granddaughter to my grandpa, the late Daniel Juan. In 2007 I lost him to diabetes.

I honestly thought it was just his time to go. He was an old man and it was his time. As the years came, I started to realize that, that wasn't it, and I could've had him longer in my life, and it hurt.

He didn't get to see me graduate, and that was the one thing that I always wanted. The goal that I set for myself was "I always want my grandpa to see me graduate from school", because he had been with me for so long in my life, and that didn't happen. I knew that he was there spiritually, and I know that he's proud of me and the things that I've done.

So that's the story that I know, a lot of young people have this same story. Have their own parents that they've lost through diabetes. A lot of young people are being affected now, so that's something that I always share. We don't have to lose our loved ones so early.

I wish that I would have understood that at the time when he was here and that we could've made better changes within our families to keep him around, but unfortunately we didn't. Now I can learn from it, and that's a message that I do share with other young people.